Les Neiges d'antan
by LesMisLoony
Summary: Marius is uncharacteristically excited by snow. Cosette is bemused. Both reminisce and decide to make soup. Featuring Gillenormand starting a snowball fight. Rather fluffy, obviously.


Cosette knew something was different as soon as she awoke. The room was bathed in a strange sort of light, brighter than usual. She turned her head, squinting sleepily, and saw Marius at the window.

"Darling?"

He turned and as the brilliant white light from outside hit his face she saw that he was grinning, the knuckles of one fist pressed against his teeth.

Surprised to see him so happy, Cosette sat up, but when the blankets fell away and the chilly air of the room hit her she burrowed back down into the bed. "Is the fire out?" she asked sleepily.

"It snowed!" Marius announced, his voice quivering in poorly-contained excitement. The grin was back on his face; he bit his lip but still could not contain it.

Cosette had not seen him this happy since their wedding day—even then he had been only happy in his quiet way. That was Marius. When Marius was happy, she knew to look for a lightness in his eyes and a sort of lift at the corner of his mouth. But this was a grin! Marius, her solemn little Marius, was grinning uncontrollably, seemingly unable to tear himself away from the window.

Cosette steeled herself and pushed all of the blankets to one side, sliding out of the bed and only groaning a little when her bare feet touched the icy floorboards. She hurried over to Marius, who wrapped an arm around her and pulled her into an embrace. "Look at it," he breathed.

On tiptoes, she peeked up over his shoulder and looked out at the street. It was still very early and the glass panes of the window were half coated in fog, but Cosette was able to see that everything outside was covered in a perfect blanket of snow, thick and pillowing into corners as though someone had tried to ice the street with fluffy pudding. She smiled against Marius's nightshirt.

"Boots!" her husband cried suddenly, releasing her and dashing over to the wardrobe. "My boots are so old; I'm afraid they may have a hole at the heel. Never mind! We'll stuff them with newspapers if we must. How about you? Have you a decent pair of boots, Cosette?"

She was still at the window, colder now that he had left her side. "I suppose so."

"It hasn't snowed this much in ages. Can you remember the last time? I mean a good, proper snow. Usually there's just enough to annoy horses, but this! Horses won't be leaving the stables for a while and their masters will be wrapped in quilts before the fire. This snow is all for us!"

"Marius, I believe you're more excited than the children will be."

He straightened up at once, one boot still clutched to his chest. "Rouse them! Oh Cosette, you must wake the children! They've never seen such snow. And the dog! Fetch the dog as well. Don't bother with the leash."

"I'm not a servant," Cosette grumbled half-heartedly, leaving the window at last and fetching her housecoat from the back of the chair. She looked at her husband again, who had already gotten both stockings on and was putting on a second pair. "I've never seen you so excited."

Marius grinned again, jamming one foot into a boot with so much force that he stumbled and nearly fell. "Snow!"

X

The family stood at the door for a long moment, gazing admiringly at the perfect snow. Cosette would have allowed one of the children to be the first to make a footprint, but before she had a chance to say anything Marius was out the door. Once he was in the snow, however, his childlike enthusiasm was only evident in that massive grin as he watched the children gathering snow into their hands and making patterns across the ground. Marius himself stood back, arms crossed, and surveyed the scene as though he was looking out upon his kingdom. Cosette went to his side and took his arm, resting her forehead against his shoulder so that her bonnet blocked out the light on all sides of her face. Her nose was already turning numb from the icy air.

"I wish we could have seen it coming down," said Marius reflectively.

Cosette lifted her head. "I'm surprised you aren't tumbling about with the children."

"Me? Never," Marius said with an air of insincere snobbery. He sniffed. "Playing is for the children, what? I'm an adult, a grown man."

Cosette couldn't stop herself from giggling. "What on earth has gotten into you?" she asked, but she knew the answer and said it at the same moment he did:

"Snow!"

She smiled up at him. He still wore that mad grin, though she could see in his eyes that he was starting to relax. That was almost a relief: of course it was wonderful to see her Marius so happy, but for a moment she had actually worried that he was losing his mind. "What is it about snow, then?" Cosette prodded. "What makes it so magical?"

"It just is. It's—it's snow. It hardly ever happens, and then when it does—I mean, you can't play in rain, can you?"

"Well, puddles—"

"Yes, but you know what I mean. Look at them." He nodded toward the children, who were laughing so rambunctiously that groups of neighbours were gathered in several windows up and down the street, watching them play with vague smiles on their faces. "And everything is so quiet," Marius went on. "It's like there's a new world smothering the old one. You don't hear carriage wheels or horses or people shouting back and forth. I haven't even heard any dogs barking—except ours, of course."

The Pontmercy spaniel, a picky little thing that reminded Cosette of Marius's late Aunt Gillenormand, was cautiously moving in slow circles around the children, taking care to walk in her own tracks and sniffing each of the little paw prints before placing her foot there anew. Cosette laughed at the sight of it.

"It snowed this much once before. Do you remember? I was young. Still living with Grandfather, God rest his soul, and not yet in university. He didn't like for me to be noisy, but that day when it snowed—" Marius trailed off and Cosette saw that his expression was distant. "I had never seen him so happy. He was happy all the time, of course, but that usually ended when he turned on me. He was usually only happy with his own friends, those stuffy old people at the salon. But that day he dressed me himself, putting on layer and layer of clothing, until he finally picked me up and threw me over his shoulder—literally!—took me downstairs, and dropped me into a snowdrift. I was terrified. But then he got down on his knees and showed me how to properly pack a snowball. And he threw it at Aunt Gillenormand! Can you imagine? Basque was new to us then—he'd just replaced a fellow called Poitevin, whom I had liked quite a lot—but he joined us in our little battle. Grandfather hit him in the temple with a snowball that was mostly ice and he staggered back into the house swearing. So then it was just the two of us again. It was ours."

Marius pressed his lips together, his blue eyes glittering as he watched the children.

"I was in the convent," said Cosette.

Marius turned to her with a half-smile. "You remember it, then?"

"It nearly came up to my knees."

"That was it!" Marius said, grinning again. "That was my snow!"

Cosette went on. "I don't remember why, but we didn't have classes that day. I went out to Papa's little house. He and Father Fauvent gave me warm soup and chocolate and we pulled a cot over by the window so that the three of us could watch the garden fill up with snow. There was a shallow trench where I had blazed a trail through the snow to his front door, and by the time I fell asleep it had completely filled in. I slept on the cot that night and when I woke the next morning Papa was asleep on the floor next to me. By then the snow had stopped falling, so after they gave me more soup for my breakfast I went out and played with the other girls."

While she was speaking Cosette forgot where she was. The memory was so strong that for a moment she was back in that cramped little room, the smell of that chicken broth and the smoky fire still fresh in her nose and her father was wrapping that scratchy blanket around her and covering her shoulders with his large, warm hands. She felt the mattress dip as he settled in at her side and could almost hear that subtle sweep of falling snow on the other side of the uneven window pane.

Marius pressed his lips to her forehead, his nose pushing her bonnet back, and the memory broke. The warmth of her father's old house was replaced once again by the icy air and Marius's supportive arm around her waist.

"Seems to me," Marius said softly, "that the best way for our children to remember this snow is for us to help them out." He released Cosette and took a step back, stooping and gathering a handful of snow. "What do you say, my pretty wife?" he asked as he deftly shaped the handful into a tight ball.

Cosette blinked up at the grey sky. She had been on the verge of tears. "I'll have Nicolette make us some soup," she said, turning toward the house.

"And chocolate!" Marius called.

Cosette turned back long enough to see Marius launch his snowball and miss the children dramatically, hitting the spaniel instead. The dog yelped and leapt a foot to one side, ruining her perfect circle of paw prints, before turning her stubby nose up and stalking over to the front door. Cosette let her in with a smile, turning once more to look at her happy family before she closed the door.


End file.
